Spzin Factbook
Spain is often associated with the 16th and 17th centuries, when it controlled several colonies across the globe. Eventually, this control was taken by England, and control of the seas and the means of trade commerce went to England as well. Without the mercantile and industrial revolutions having as profound an impact in Spain as in other cultures, the once global empire weakened and fell behind its European counterparts, England, France, and Germany. In both world wars, Spain remained neutral, but was devastated during the same timeframe by civil war. Dictator Francisco Franco died in1975, and was followed by a transition to democracy, and economic modernization. Joining the EU in 1986, the economy of Spain rapidly grew, and has become a global supporter of freedom and human rights. The Spanish government continues to fight Basque Fatherland and Liberty (ETA) terrorists, but is more concerned with measures to reverse the economic downturn that began in mid-2008. KEY GEOGRAPHY Spain is in southwestern Europe, bordering the Bay of Biscay, the Mediterranean Sea, the North Atlantic Ocean, and the Pyrenees Mountains on the southwest border of France. The borders are 63.7 km with Andorra, 623 km with France, 1.2 km with Gibraltar, 1,214 km with Portugal, 6.3 km with Morocco (Ceuta), and 9.6 km with Morocco (Melilla). The Spanish territorial waters are 12 nm from the coast, 24 nm from the coast is included in the contiguous zone, and the exclusive economic zone on the Atlantic Ocean stretches 200 nm from the coast. The climate is temperate; clear, hot summers in interior, with more moderate and cloudy summers along the coast; cloudy, cold winters in interior, while it is partly cloudy and cool along the coast. The terrain is largely flat to dissected plateau that is surrounded by rugged hills. The Pyrenees are in the north of the country. This country’s natural resources include coal, lignite, iron ore, copper, lead, zinc, uranium, tungsten, mercury, pyrites, magnesite, fluorspar, gypsum, sepiolite, kaolin, potash, hydropower, and arable land. Spain controls key approaches to the Strait of Gibraltar, the entrance to the Mediterranean Sea from the Atlantic Ocean. THE POPULATION The estimated population in July of 2009 for the country of Spain was 40,525,002 people. Spain also had an estimated growth rate of 0.072%. THE GOVERNMENT AND FLAG The Kingdom of Spain, referred to as Spain, has its capital in the city of Madrid. The government located here, is a parliamentary monarchy with a hereditary monarch and a bicameral parliament, the Cortes Generales. The executive branch consists of a Council of Ministers presided over by the President of Government (comparable to a prime minister), proposed by the monarch and elected by the National Assembly following legislative elections. The legislative branch is made up of the Congress of Deputies (Congreso de los Diputados) with 350 members, elected by popular vote on block lists by proportional representation to serve four-year terms, and a Senate (Senado) with 259 seats of which 208 are directly elected by popular vote and the other 51 appointed by the regional legislatures to also serve four-year terms. The flag has three horizontal bands. The top is red, the idle is yellow at double the width of the top red band, red with the national coat of arms on the hoist side of the yellow band; the coat of arms is quartered to display the emblems of the traditional kingdoms of Spain while Granada is represented by the stylized pomegranate at the bottom of the shield; the arms are framed by two columns representing the Pillars of Hercules, which are the two promontories, Gibraltar and Ceuta, on either side of the eastern end of the Strait of Gibraltar; the red scroll across the two columns bears the imperial motto of "Plus Ultra", translated as “further beyond,” referring to Spanish lands beyond Europe. THE ECONOMY The Spanish economy grew every year from 1994 through 2008, before entering a recession that started in the third quarter of 2008. Spain's mixed capitalist economy supports a GDP that on a per capita basis is approaching that of the largest West European economies. The Socialist president, Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero, who has been in office since 2004, has made mixed progress in carrying out key structural reforms. The economy was greatly affected by the bursting of the housing bubble and construction boom that had fueled much of the economic growth between 2001 and 2007. The global financial crisis exacerbated this situation. GDP growth in 2008 was 1.1%, well below the 3% or higher growth the country enjoyed from 1997 through 2007. The Spanish banking system is still considered solid, thanks in part to conservative oversight by the European Central Bank, and government intervention to rescue banks on the scale seen elsewhere in Europe in 2008 was not necessary. After considerable success since the mid-1990s in reducing unemployment to a 2007 low of 8%, Spain suffered a major spike in unemployment in the last few months of 2008, finishing the year with an unemployment rate over 13%. The GDP, estimated in 2008, is $1.378 trillion, in purchasing power parity. The growth rate, estimated at the same time as the GDP, is 1.1%. The economy is dominated by services, and industry has about one-third of the GDP, while agriculture has just over 3% of the GDP. The 2008 estimated unemployment rate was 13.9%. The government has a revenue of $1.378 trillion, while in 2008, the expenditures were estimated to be $535.6 billion. The country produces grain, vegetables, olives, wine grapes, sugar beets, citrus; beef, pork, poultry, dairy products, and fish. The industry produces textiles and apparel, footwear, food and beverages, metals and metal manufactures, chemicals, shipbuilding, automobiles, machine tools, tourism, clay and refractory products, pharmaceuticals, and medical equipment. Machinery, motor vehicles, foodstuffs, pharmaceuticals, medicines, and other consumer goods are exported commodities while machinery and equipment, fuels, chemicals, semifinished goods, foodstuffs, consumer goods, and measuring and medical control instruments are imported. ISSUES There is dispute over the territorial claims if Gibraltar, and islands in and around the Strait of Gibraltar. Spain’s large coastline is used to bring illicit drugs into Europe. Spain is used by Colombian drug trafficking organizations, and organized crime to launder money.